Conventional skateboards include a foot board having a pair of front and rear wheels rotatably mounted on appropriate trucks secured to the underside of the board. The wheel supporting truck structure for both the front and rear wheels is such that when a greater weight is placed on one longitudinal side of the skateboard than the other, the wheels will swivel to turn the skateboard in the direction of the greater weight. Normally, the wheel trucks are permanently secured to the underside of the skateboard and thus their longitudinal spacing is fixed.
It has been found that for certain types of skateboard operation, such as high speed downhill racing, greater stability is achieved if the front and rear wheels are further apart than the distance normally provided. On the other hand when executing various fancy maneuvers in small areas, it is desired to have the front and rear wheels longitudinally spaced closer together, this decreased spacing permitting a tighter turning radius. While different sized skateboards can be purchased wherein the longitudinal spacing between the front and rear wheels is different, and an appropriate skateboard selected for a desired operation, it would be desirable to provide a single skateboard in which the longitudinal distance between the front and rear wheels could be easily adjusted.
Attempts have been made in the past to provide just such a skateboard. One means for accomplishing such adjustment would be to provide a plurality of screw holes on the underside of the board, various ones of which can be selected to secure the trucks to the board. While this solution is satisfactory to a certain extent, the adjustment is limited to discrete steps determined by the spacing between the screw holes. Moreover, it is a somewhat time consuming operation to unthread and thread the screws for each of the trucks, there generally being provided at least four screws for each truck at the corners.
Other proposed solutions have been to provide a track structure beneath the skateboard along which the trucks can ride, there being provided detent means and appropriate indexing slots or openings for receiving the detent means to secure the wheel trucks at desired positions. This latter type structure solves the problem of time involved in removing and resetting screws. On the other hand, detent type locking or even providing registering holes through which pins can pass will not always assure a rigid securement of the wheel truck to the skateboard in its set position. Moreover, there is still involved the problem of limited adjustments in that registering holes or a detent and slot must be aligned. Thus, adjustments can only be made in discrete steps.